Rhinohawk Autonomous UAV System

This repository contains the ROS code for the Rhinohawk Autonomous UAV System. Rhinohawk is a non-profit UAV competition team, based in Reston, VA.

Install

This software has been developed and tested on Ubuntu 16. To get started, create a new Lubuntu 16 VM, and use the RH ROS Installer to install ROS, the Rhinohawk code, and all the other dependencies.

Build

The software needs to be rebuilt any time the message or service definitions are changed, or if C++ code needs to be recompiled.

To build all the nodes, run catkin_make in the Catkin workspace:

cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make

Simulation

To run a simulation using SITL you'll need three terminals.

In terminal 1, launch the ground control station:

roslaunch rh_ground_control start.launch

In terminal 2, start the simulator and the Rhinohawk System:

roslaunch rh_simulation apm.launch

In terminal 3, you can run pre-defined missions:

rosrun rh_simulation run_me2018_ez.sh

You can also issue individual commands using the Rhinohawk ROS services:

rosservice call /rh/command/flyto "{target_lat: 38.977610, target_long: -77.339027, cruise_altitude: 20}"

Run

To run the Rhinohawk System with the Rhinohawk production hardware, you'll run the ground control station software on a laptop connected via wifi to the UAV.

On the laptop, launch the ground control station:

roslaunch rh_ground_control start.launch

On the UAV, run the autonomous system:

CAMERA_NAME=chameleon3 roslaunch rh_autonomy rh.launch

3DR Solo

To run the Rhinohawk System with a 3DR Solo quadcopter, connect your laptop to the Solo controlller wifi ("Sololink") and then launch using your calibrated camera configuration:

CAMERA_NAME=solo4zoom roslaunch rh_autonomy rh.launch

Code Organization

The code is organized into several ROS packages, each containing one or more ROS nodes:

• Core Rhinohawk System
  • rh_ground_station - web-based ground station for defining and monitoring missions
  • rh_msgs - shared ROS message/service definition, modeled after mavros_msgs package
  • rh_autonomy - Rhinohawk autonomous mission execution
    • /rh/state
    • /rh/flight
    • /rh/controller
    • /rh/command
  • rh_vision - all machine vision code for camera-based sensing
    • /rh/vision/aruco_detector
    • /rh/vision/image_to_target
  • camera_driver - all camera-related code and configurations
    • /camera
    • /camera/image_raw
    • /camera/image_rect
    • /camera/image_mono
• 3dr Solo
  • rh_solo - code and configuration for running the Rhinohawk System on a 3dr Solo quadcopter
• Software-In-The-Loop (SITL)
  • rh_simulation - code and launch files for running SITL simulations on PX4 and APM